Why makes Johnnie run?

Amil Imani’s article, “Who is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?”, is not the first to explain the radical Shi’ite belief system to which Johnnie subscribes, but it’s always useful to remind ourselves.

Imani, an Iranian-born U.S. citizen, concludes:

Ahmadinejad and his ilk are not interested in any negotiation, any compromise or any live-and-let-live final solution. They are determined to be the soldiers of Mahdi come-what-may. They have no problem with the total destruction of the world. They are headed for a life of eternal bliss in Allah’s paradise. They hardly care, even rejoice, if the rest of humanity is subjected to a tragic death in the nuclear, biological and chemical wasteland of planet earth.

May I also add this, that Iran’s nuclear program must be destroyed.

- end of initial entry -

Anthony Damato writes:

The Iranian president said something that to me is important, that American and Western cultural imperialism are a threat to the Islamic world. However, in making such a statement, it seems to me that he reveals an awareness that the same Western forces that threaten the non-Western cultures threaten Western culture as well.

Here’s what he said:

“As another example, by using precise scientific methods and planning, they begin their onslaught on the domestic cultures of nations, the cultures which are the result of thousands of years of interaction, creativity and artistic activities. They try to eliminate these cultures in order to separate the people from their identity and cut their bonds with their own history and values. They prepare the ground for stripping people from their spiritual and material wealth by instilling in them feelings of intimidation, desire for imitation and mere consumption, submission to oppressive powers, and disability.”

LA replies:

Clearly he’s talking about the threat to traditional non-Western cultures. Whether he would be aware that traditional Western culture is also threatened, I’m not sure, and I have no idea what he would think about that if we were aware of it. After all, his only interest in the West is that it be Islamized. So it seems to me that he couldn’t possibly care about traditional Western culture.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 24, 2007 07:52 PM | Send